


Somewhere Over the Rainbow

by prettybirdy979



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a Tumblr Post, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), M/M, Not Beta Read, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 20:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21344407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettybirdy979/pseuds/prettybirdy979
Summary: Angels and Demons have complete control over their appearance. Complete control - including theirwings.Of course the uniform code demands Black and White and no other colour and after Aziraphale's first run in with the warnings for violations... well he's not up for a second warning.But an Angel candream, right?
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 50
Kudos: 723





	Somewhere Over the Rainbow

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on Rainydaydecaf's post [here](http://rainydaydecaf.tumblr.com/post/188764003654/hey-heres-a-headcanon-ive-seen-discussions-on) about Angels and Demons being able to change their wing colour. It was going to be a short fic and then this happened...
> 
> My first Good Omens fic on AO3!

It is two days after the Fall of Mankind (as some of the other angels have taken to calling it) when Gabriel drops in to check on Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale gets exactly two seconds warning, which is enough for him to scramble into a guarding position instead of the nice lounging one he'd been trying out. There's no real way to hide that he doesn't have the sword but a quick look to his left has a cloth appear that could, at a quick glance, look like it is covering a sword not a rock.

'Gabriel! What a pleasant surprise… why are you here?'

The smile Gabriel gives him makes something in Aziraphale shiver. But it's a smile! Smiles are always nice. Even the demon Crawley's smile the other day was nice.

_ Nicer than this smile _, slinks through his mind and is immediately banished to a deep part of his brain.

‘Oh they’ve finally settled the hierarchies in Heaven and I’m just doing the rounds. Meeting my new subordinates.’ Gabriel hasn’t stopped grinning the entire time he’s been speaking and Aziraphale almost wishes he _ would _.

‘Ah. Um… I thought I was to report to ah, Her? As the Guardian of the Eastern Gate?’

Gabriel shakes his head slowly and Aziraphale wonders why each movement strikes at something in him. ‘Oh _ Aziraphale _. Eden’s being moved to another plane; you’re being reassigned. Lead field agent on Earth!’

Something like panic seizes at Aziraphale’s insides. ‘Lead? Like with… with people reporting to me?’

‘Don’t be silly; no one would have you as a manager at this stage,’ Gabriel laughs, as if Aziraphale just told a fantastic joke.

But… oh. ‘Right.’ Aziraphale stands a little taller, shuffling his wings, and puts on a smile that he’s sure isn’t quite reaching his eyes. ‘Well then. Lovely to meet you. I ah, assume there’s orders for me now?’

Gabriel doesn’t reply, his eyes on a point behind Aziraphale. ‘What’s that?’

Aziraphale looks over his shoulder. ‘The wall surrounding the Garden of Eden?’

‘No, not that,’ Gabriel says with a roll of his eyes. ‘That.’ He points at Aziraphale’s wings.

‘Oh, these?’ Aziraphale spreads his wings to their full span, still admiring the look of them. They’re mostly white right now, because it seems to fit what with the black winged Crowley hanging around and the whole Heaven’s side being marked on the battlefield by white wings thing. But there had been a rather cheeky pair of yellow crested birds in the garden that had caught Aziraphale’s eyes, and, well, their wings were _ mostly _ white with those lovely yellow undersides so surely it wouldn’t _ hurt _ if Aziraphale copies them…

The look on Gabriel’s face tell Aziraphale that yes. It does hurt.

‘I’ll change back,’ Aziraphale says instantly, going to click his fingers. 

Gabriel holds up a hand. ‘No.’ He reaches over and pulls out a single feather from each wing, not noticing (please let it be not noticing) how it makes Aziraphale hiss in pain. Not noticing how Aziraphale’s wings curl in on themselves at the _ violation _ of being touched, of being injured even slightly.

‘Now you’ll change back,’ Gabriel says as if he just took a wrong coloured shirt off Aziraphale. ‘First warning Aziraphale; don’t let me catch you out of uniform again.’

Aziraphale nods, snapping his wings back to the purest of whites. ‘Never again.’

*********

It’s a hard promise to keep.

Earth’s birds are just _ so interesting _. 

Aziraphale had seen them all in the Garden of course, but there’s a difference between seeing them in one smallish garden and watching them all over the world. Even the dullest of brown wings seem so much more exciting than Aziraphale’s colourless white ones.

Crawl- no _ Crowley _ brings it up when they sit down to oysters. 

‘You’re still got white I see,’ he says with a nod at Aziraphale’s wings, hovering in another plane just out of visibility.

Aziraphale raises an eyebrow. ‘And you’ve black.’ Crowley acknowledges the point with a nod of his head. ‘Thought you at least would’ve changed… you seem a lot more…’

‘Rather,’ Crowley says dryly, cutting Aziraphale’s sightly rambling sentence off. ‘But you know. Uniform.’

‘I do,’ Aziraphale says with a sigh that gets a raised eyebrow from Crowley. ‘Oh don’t give me that look. Have you seen some of the birds the Amazon got?’

That sets off an argument about which part of the world got the best birds, measured by increasingly ridiculous standards.

The unspoken standard of course, is the colour they would like to try.

But they can’t. It wouldn’t be proper. It wouldn’t be _ right _.

********

The Arrangement brings with it one minor issue.

‘I can’t show up to a temptation with white wings!’ Aziraphale tells his books, who like all good books ignore hysterics not likely to get them burned. ‘But if I change…’

If he changes, who would know?

‘It’s just for a little while. Just slipping on someone else’s uniform for a quick moment.’ Aziraphale looks at his books, biting his lip as he tries to swallow down the feelings crawling at his stomach.

Tries to claw down the _ excitement _ at the thought of, just for a moment, having wings that aren’t _ white _.

He clicks and refuses to admit he sighs in relief as he feels the black creep down his wings.

********

Over the years Aziraphale has collected a number of simply beautiful books about birds, always kept in the back room where no one else can see them.

No one else, that is, other than Crowley who always starts to fish through them when they’ve drunk their way past totally and utterly drunk and are well on their way to completely and dangerously smashed.

‘Oh, look at this one!’ he calls this particular night as they drink to the sad but successful firing of Nanny - and resignation of Brother Francis - from the role of caretaker of the now six year old Antichrist. He’s pointing at a black and blue winged bird that Aziraphale is too far away to make out the name of. At least, that’s what he tells himself.

Crowley clicks and his wings shift colours, the blue bleeding into the black. He brings them into existence and lifts them up and down, letting the light shine through the blue feathers.

Aziraphale watches, burning with jealousy. ‘Still blac… blac- back back!’

‘Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah,’ Crowley slurs, clicking his fingers. His wings fade back to complete black far slower than their first change was. ‘Hell-eeelll do send rude notes.’

‘Theeey do?’

Crowley blinks and shakes his head, a motion that doesn’t stop for far longer than he speaks. ‘Teh hey hey do not.’

‘You said they doooo.’

‘They do nooooot,’ Crowley says, stumbling into a chair as he stops shaking his head. ‘Your lot dooooooo.’

Aziraphale huffs. ‘Nooooo. Not, not… not for wings. Wings they re- re- re- take out the off- bad feathers.’

Crowley sobers up so fast Aziraphale’s left blinking at the surge of power in the room. ‘They _ what? _’

Sensing that this might be a conversation he has to have sober, despite the unhappy voice in his head screaming about it, Aziraphale sobers up too. It’s a lot harder to say though, without the alcohol. ‘They ah… they remove the offending feathers. As a warning, you know?’

‘And you’ve never been warned?’ It doesn’t sound like a question, the way Crowley says it. It sounds like a _ plea _.

‘First warning. My only one!’ Aziraphale has to admit and his demon looks murderous. ‘Just two feathers, hardly worth crying about.’

‘Oh _ angel _,’ is all Crowley says, offering him another drink.

They chase down drunk again but it’s a far more somber mood. And the next time they drink Crowley doesn’t fish out any of Aziraphale’s books.

The end of the world comes before those books come out again.

*********

Crowley is about to walk out the door of his flat, his face that of Aziraphale when Aziraphale looks up and cries out.

‘Stop!’ 

‘What?’ Crowley says panicked, turning around with a look on his face that Aziraphale wants to protest doesn’t belong on his face.

‘Your wings!’ Aziraphale points at the black wings Crowley still sports. 

Crowley pulls them into existence and Aziraphale finds himself doing the same to his own wings. ‘Huh.’ He looks up at Aziraphale and without breaking eye contact, clicks to change them to white. ‘I look odd with white wings.’

‘It’s not like it’s the first time you’ve worn them,’ Aziraphale says as he matches the gesture. This time he leans into the feeling of the change spreading down his wings, flexing them as they darken into the shade of black Crowley favours. ‘All those blessings.’

‘I did wonder if you changed your wings for the temptations,’ Crowley says, the wide eyed look of delight working so well on Aziraphale’s face that Aziraphale feels almost cheated. A burning desire to see Crowley have that look with his own face fills Aziraphale.

‘After this,’ Aziraphale declares, ‘we are going to try every colour of the wings in that book of-’ he hesitates then continues, ‘-of yours angel.’ 

Crowley _ squeaks _ and Aziraphale wants to cheer.

‘I could be tempted,’ Crowley says and then turns and walks out the door, his wings fading onto another plane as he goes.

********

That night, after the Ritz, they go back to Aziraphale’s bookshop.

Crowley’s barely through the doorway before he’s sprinting for the back room. Aziraphale follows at a slower pace, grinning when he sees Crowley leafing through the most recent bird book he owns. 

‘This one,’ Crowley says pointing at a male Flame bowerbird as his wings slip into this plane of existence. He clicks and they go red and yellow in the most _ beautiful _ gradient Aziraphale’s ever seen. ‘You?’

Aziraphale manifests his own wings and walks up to stand beside Crowley. He touches the edge of one of his still white wings to Crowley’s before he clicks, focusing so the colours start from where their wings touch and flow outwards.

It’s a lovely effect, made even better by the way Crowley makes an ‘nrk’ noise and splutters a lot. 

‘Beautiful,’ Aziraphale says, ‘but perhaps a little flashy for me.’ He clicks again and his wings shift into the olive brown of the female Flame bowerbird. ‘Perhaps this?’

Crowley takes off his glasses in one slow movement, looking Aziraphale dead in the eyes. ‘I’m going to kiss you now angel.’

Aziraphale raises his head. ‘Not if I kiss you first.’

Later they argue over who actually kissed who first, but both agree the Rainbow Lorikeet wings they clicked their wings into being during the kiss was a fine choice for that moment.

********

They’re in a miraculously empty St James Park, feeding the ducks while matching their wings to them, when Aziraphale feels a presence matching up the path towards them. It’s _ angry _ in only the way something powerful can be Aziraphale has to frown.

‘Gabriel’s coming,’ he says idly to Crowley, changing his wings to match a particularly iridescent duck’s wings.

‘I can taste it from here,’ Crowley says with a grimace, throwing another bit of seed to the ducks and swapping his wings to match a young swan’s.

It takes Gabriel a few moments to actually arrive, by which point Aziraphale has shooed off all but the most determined birds who Crowley is now feeding. And protecting, if Gabriel gets…. _ annoying _.

‘What the _ Hell _ are you _ wearing? _ ’ Gabriel demands, his eyes on Aziraphale’s wings. ‘And what are you _ doing _ ? We can sense the miracles from _ Heaven _!’

‘Trying something new,’ Aziraphale says with a smile. He clicks and his wings swift into the most bizarre of rainbows, something iridescent that no natural bird has. ‘I’m thinking of wearing these when we go to Pride with those Happy people next week.'

‘Gay people Aziraphale,’ Crowley calls from his seat on the bench. ‘You mean gay.'

‘Oh yes, thank you dear.’

Crowley raises a hand in acknowledgement, which he then uses to click and oh his wings are now a lovely, blinding white.

Gabriel _ hisses _ and it fills Aziraphale with glee. 

‘Go away Gabriel,’ he says in a soft voice that still makes Gabriel’s eyes widen with fear. Aziraphale tries not to let the glee rushing through his veins into his voice but it’s _ hard. _‘Leave us alone like you promised.’

And starring Gabriel straight in the eyes, Aziraphale clicks and turns his wings the darkest black possible. 

The look on his former boss’ face is _ amazing _, similar to the look of several dying humans Aziraphale saw over the centuries. 

‘Go away now,’ he repeats and settles in to feed the ducks again.

It’s only once Gabriel has scuttled off, tail behind his legs, that Aziraphale clicks and lets his wings settle into a Magpie’s black and white ones. Crowley gently touches his white wings to Aziraphale’s wings and clicks too, bleeding the black into his wings from the points of contact until they match.

And anyone looking would have a hard time telling which pair of wings belonged to which being.

Which suits them both just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out more of my Good Omens fics on [Tumblr](http://prettybirdy979.tumblr.com/tagged/My+Scribbles)!
> 
> EDIT: Beautiful art by Anotherwellkeptsecret commissioned for this fic [here](https://anotherwellkeptsecret.tumblr.com/post/617962641919492096/commission-of-crowley-and-aziraphale-with-rainbow)!


End file.
